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Supervisors to pursue countywide minimum wage increase

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday decided to pursue a countywide ordinance that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2017.

The timeline for approval is not final, but the goal is to pass the ordinance by the end of August, board member Rod Sullivan said. The first stage of the increase would then be implemented Nov. 1, 2015.

“We have a lot of poor people in this county that are not making enough money,” Supervisor Mike Carberry said during Wednesday’s meeting.

Supervisor Janelle Rettig agreed, citing Johnson County’s 17.7 percent poverty rate, compared to 12.4 percent for Iowa overall. Johnson County also has the highest cost of living in the state, she said.

Board members said they arrived at the $10.10 figure because it has been part of the national wage conversation in recent years, and research proves it can be done. But, they said, someone making $10.10 an hour in Johnson County still isn’t making a living wage and they expressed willingness to look at larger increases in the future.

“I think this is a great first step, but I would like to continue this discussion,” Carberry said.

Jesse Case, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, which has lobbied for a higher wage, said the board’s action was a positive step and that a higher wage would help workers and businesses because low-wage workers are shown to spend more of their money close to home.

“That money is immediately put back into our community,” Case said.

A draft version of the ordinance states that the current minimum wage of $7.25 would increase by 95 cents on Nov. 1 to $8.20. An additional increase on May 1, 2016, would bring it up to $9.15 and the wage finally would reach $10.10 on Jan. 1, 2017. The draft also calls for the creation of a Citizen’s Commission to recommend a course of action for future increases.

Most businesses in the county already pay workers more than $7.25, Rettig said, so they wouldn’t be affected until the second increase takes place in 2016.

“It’s not until the second jump that most employers will be impacted,” she said.

Karen Kubby, a co-owner of Beadology Iowa in downtown Iowa City, said talk of a wage increase made her nervous at first, but she realized that a small increase in prices would allow her to easily stay in business.

“If I can do it, I feel like a lot of small businesses — if they really run the … numbers — will be just fine,” she said.

Dave Alatalo, who owns an Iowa City-based contracting company, said he already pays his employees more than minimum wage, but is concerned that without robust enforcement some employers would cheat and offer lower prices by keeping their wages down.

“If you have a rule and you don’t enforce it, you don’t have a rule,” he said. Board members said enforcement would probably be complaints-based and employees who were being underpaid could work through the legal system.

Christian Bruna, 39, who moved to Iowa City from New York, said Wednesday afternoon that any wage below $15 isn’t a realistic option for adults with children.

“I just don’t think that these places that are offering jobs should be paying kids who have just come out of college the same wage as someone in their 30s,” he said. Bruna has held a number of jobs in Johnson County, including working seasonal jobs at Coral Ridge Mall, and said it felt like he was slaving away for a low wage.

Kirsten Solonika, a psychology student at the University of Iowa, said she is working three part-time jobs at or around minimum wage.

“It’s summer and I’m not taking classes so I figure I work my butt off three months out of the year so I don’t have to work as hard during the school year,” she said. Making more might mean she doesn’t have to work as many hours, but she and Bruna both expressed concern that prices for goods and services might increase as well.

Part of the discussion among board members was about whether the county has the legal authority to set a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage, even if cities in the county wanted it to remain at the current federal rate of $7.25, which was set in 2009.

County Attorney Janet Lyness said the board likely could pass an ordinance that would apply to cities unless they decided to opt out, but that she had more research to do.

The board agreed that they wanted cities to be a part of the wage conversation, in the interest of having a uniform, countywide standard that would prevent cities from competing with each other if some decided to opt out.

“I hope that each of those communities are a part of the conversation,” Neuzil said, suggesting that the supervisors send cities a letter or offer to go to council meetings to discuss the issue.

The board also expressed support for hosting a community forum sometime in August to gather public input before taking a final vote.

One concern board members raised was whether they could face a lawsuit over raising the wage. They asked Lyness if she thought the county could defend itself in such a suit.

“We need to do more research on that and I couldn’t guarantee any outcome,” Lyness said.

To minimize that risk, the proposed ordinance would stick closely to state law, keeping existing exceptions for workers who make tips or are otherwise exempt from the minimum wage. That would be a lot simpler than rewriting elements of the tax code, Sullivan said.

Still, Rettig said the county should take action even with the risk of a lawsuit.

“There are far less worthy reasons to get sued than helping people living in poverty,” she said.

Reach Stephen Gruber-Miller at 319-887-5407 or sgrubermil@press-citizen.com. Follow him at @sgrubermiller